As part of the work to curb the spread of Covid-19, authorities have decided to reduce the issuing of grocery permits for households.

Maldives Police Service (MPS) said that all grocery permits will “be reduced to once a week” effective from Sunday.

While a lockdown was imposed in the greater Malé region on April 15 following the detection of a Covid-19 community transmission, this lockdown has been extended thrice and the current one will remain until May 28.

However, authorities have been issuing permits to households to go out for essential needs during the lockdown. These police permits were issued to each household once every three days and the city was divided into a total of 26 zones for this purpose.

While the permits will now be issued once a week, police said that those already registered do not have to re-register and that they will receive “a new text message revealing the new time”.

The change is line with calls by health experts to strengthen movement restriction measures as Covid-19 projections show that the remainder of May will be critical in the country’s fight against the virus.